


Goodbye, My Love

by Farashe



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4321407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farashe/pseuds/Farashe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While in the Fade, Myrlana reads what she believes to be a letter from Cullen. Varric helps her face her fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye, My Love

It was a letter from Cullen. Myrlana’s fingers trembled as she reached for it. She knew what this place was, and she knew that reading that letter was not a good idea. Yet she couldn’t resist. Knowing one was in a place of nightmares didn’t always mean you could escape, not without waking up. And there was no waking up when you were physically in the Fade.

She broke the seal and began to read:

> _
> 
> Myrlana,
> 
> I love you. I have loved you for so long and been too afraid to admit it. Even these past few months, I’ve been afraid that you could not share the depth of my feelings. But now, there is no more reason to fear.
> 
> _

Myrlana smiled and pressed the parchment to her heart. These were the words she’d wanted for so long now. With a light heart, she read on, and the Fade around her was forgotten.

> _
> 
> I want to express my gratitude. You believed in me, believed I was strong enough. You were wrong, but I want you to know that it meant so much to me. For you, I tried. I tried to be the man I knew I never would be because your smile and your eyes told me it was true.
> 
> _

Her fingers tightened on the parchment, and a small frown replaced the smile she’d worn moments before. Why couldn’t he see the man he was?

> _
> 
> Thank you, my love. I have treasured our time together, and I believe you will do such great things.
> 
> And that’s why I must say goodbye. I know now, I’m not that man you see, and I never can be. Every night there are nightmares and every day there is pain and weakness. The agony of lyrium will not end while I live. I must face that reality and use what little strength I have to do the right thing. Cassandra will find a new general for the Inquisition, and you will lead Thedas to victory and peace. I have faith in you.
> 
> Remember that I loved you, truly. With my last breath I loved you. And so, my lady, my Myrlana, the only thing left is to say farewell.
> 
> May Andraste preserve you.
> 
> Goodbye, my love,  
> Cullen
> 
> _

Her fingers slackened and the parchment fluttered to the ground. Her eyes stared ahead, but she couldn’t perceive her surroundings. The only thing she knew was pain. He couldn’t have! He loved her! And she loved him, so much, and now she couldn’t tell him. He’d stolen that from her along with his own life.

A hand grabbed her arm and shook her. She brushed it off, but the hand only returned. She tried to ignore whoever it was--what did they matter?--but the hand continued to shake her, and she could dimly perceive a voice shouting at her. Then suddenly a sharp pain exploded across one cheek. She gasped, and with that breath came the rest of her senses. A face marked with a streak of red and framed by dark hair peered at her.

“Hawke?” Myrlana croaked.

“Well, finally!” the Champion said. “We were almost starting to worry, Inquisitor. I had to slap you before Varric tore your arm off shaking you.” Myrlana blinked and looked at her arm. Varric’s hand still rested there, though it’s grip was gentle now. The Champion laid her own hands on Myrlana’s shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. “Whatever you saw, whatever you heard, it’s what that demon wanted to you to see. It’s playing with your fears.”

Myrlana looked down to where the letter had fallen, but there was nothing there, no sign of what she’d seen. She looked back up and nodded to Hawke, acknowledging her words.

Hawke cocked her head and smiled crookedly. “Now, you aren’t going to execute me or anything for slapping you right? I’m fond of my head where it is.”

Myrlana twitched her lips in an almost-smile and shook her head. Speaking was more than she could quite manage.

“Good, then let’s go.”

They got underway, but Myrlana couldn’t stop thinking about that letter. It had all felt so real, she could have sworn that the letter had been in her hands. Could it have been a reflection of reality? They’d found other such things here. But no, Cullen was at Adamant probably thinking she was dead.

Unless… Could the Fade show the future? Could this be something that was going to happen after she got out? She shook her head, dismissing it as impossible, and yet… It wouldn’t go away, it kept gnawing at her.

“Want to talk about it?”

Myrlana looked down at Varric. He wasn’t looking back at her, only walking beside her as if everything was normal.

“No,” she said with a sigh and looked resolutely forward.

“Fair enough,” he replied conversationally, and they walked in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. “It was about Curly, wasn’t it?” Her head jerked around to look at him in surprise. He chuckled mirthlessly at her reaction. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out. Not much rattles you, Peony, but everyone can tell you care about him. And that you worry about him. So if a fear demon would pick anything to latch onto, it’d be your dashing Commander.”

“It was a letter,” she told him softly. “He said he loved me, but that he couldn’t go on. He said he was going to... that he had…” She wasn’t sure how to continue, but Varric just nodded.

“In Kirkwall, Hawke went into the Fade to save a mage. Not physically like now, but it wasn’t a dream or so I was told. There was a demon that offered me revenge against my brother if I turned against Hawke.” Varric finally looked up at Myrlana, his eyes direct. “I took the deal.”

Myrlana’s eyes widened and she glanced over at Hawke who was strolling nearby trying to joke with Solas. She could not conceive of Varric ever betraying the charismatic Champion. Their friendship was so deep and so obvious.

“She forgave me. Immediately, in fact. But it doesn’t change the fact that I did it. A demon got to me, maybe could again. But it isn’t truth. I’m sure Chuckles would disagree, but this place isn’t real. You aren’t the real you here. I would never turn against Hawke, especially not for something as petty as revenge against my idiot brother.” Varric stopped and faced Myrlana squarely. “So remember, the Cullen that wrote that letter, that’s not the real Cullen. The real one is somewhere in Adamant, waiting for us to get out of this shit.”

Myrlana looked down at him and thought about Cullen. She pictured him standing at Adamant’s ruined gates listening to reports, snapping orders, holding up the Inquisition while he waited for her. He was strong enough to carry on even though she was sure he was frantic with worry over her disappearance, just as she knew he was strong enough to cast away the shackles of lyrium. She should have remembered that as she read that terrible letter. He would never leave her like that.

Finally, she nodded to Varric, and they began walking again. A few skirmishes with the spider-like fearlings and the grotesque creatures Hawke had decided to call “gibbering horrors” helped Myrlana clear her mind. Cullen would give her a crooked smile at the thought that pulverizing demons was meditative for her. Her lips twitched upward at that thought.

Any temptation to smile vanished when they found what looked like a small graveyard. Each headstone bore a name she recognized, but instead of an epitaph there were fears. She saw Varric and Solas, Blackwall and Cassandra. There was one for each of her companions. Though she dreaded seeing it, morbid curiosity drove her to search for Cullen’s and even worse, her eyes sought her own name.

_Cullen._ She found it. _Imprisonment._

She shuddered though she was unsurprised. After everything he’d told her of his past, she couldn’t think of anything that would scare him more.

She moved through the headstones. Cullen’s stone was flanked by Josephine’s and Leliana’s. Then came The Iron Bull, Sera, Vivienne. There was Dorian and even Cole. Finally, she found the stone bearing the name _Myrlana Lavellan_. And the words below were _Goodbye, my love._

Myrlana let loose a primal scream, and she swung her enormous battleaxe down at the headstone shattering it with a single blow. She glared down at the stone’s remains, panting slightly. After a few moments she turned and stalked out of the graveyard without a word.

The demon had made a mistake. It had tried to pull her back into her fear-fueled despair, but it hadn’t worked. Instead she was pissed, and she wanted that thing’s head.

“Remind me never to slap her again,” Hawke muttered to Varric as they trailed along behind the fuming Inquisitor. “She’s _terrifying._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, the advisors also get headstones in the Fade graveyard, as does the Inquisitor. Thinking about what would be on them is something I enjoy thinking about.
> 
> From the prompt "Goodbye, my love" given to me on Tumblr. I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
